Nothing much happening

Howdy all,

It has been longer than I wish since I’ve added a blog entry. Put at its simplest, not much is going on.

Just stuck in a lock-down world, keeping things going. A couple times each week I mow the lawn, and maybe do some edging/trimming. And more times each week, I water the lawn and add grass seed here and there, or ant killer here and there, and various critter stoppers, or fertilizers. The lawn is getting closer to being fully green. Next year I’ll start treatments of weed killers on it too. But for now, green is much better than when I moved in.

This week I did get caught up on the huge pile of wood and branches the prior owner had hidden behind the outbuilding. The last was burned in the fire pit yesterday. Another check mark on the list of things I needed to accomplish to make this place less of a dump.

I’ve also been moving plants around and adding flowers here and there to make it nicer. And I planted some herbs (thyme, basil, and such) that I will be putting on a planter stand by the sliding glass patio doors.

Oh, I did find something to help with the chippies (chipmunks). But it wasn’t a nice solution. Actually, a couple of solutions. One is from a company that makes products under the brand Tomcat. They make these “Feeding” stations that are plastic maze like containers. Small enough that the normal squirrel or cat/dog can’t get it, but rodent sized critters can. The feed is really a coated seed and/or pellet with bad stuff in it. The chippies even went into the outbuilding to get some of it to take and hoard for later. Well, when later gets here, a nasty tummy ache follows.

The second solution is something called “Atlas, The Giant Destroyer“.. Even scarier. These are short road flare type things, where you put in a 5 second fuse, light it, jam it into the tunnel, and bury quickly. It “gases’ the tunnel. So wherever you see smoke coming out of the ground, you need to bury that exit hole too. And Chippie takes a nap — FOREVER!… No more holes leading into house or outbuilding…

One thing you don’t want to do is hold that flare very long. Oh my.. The flames are huge and the gas is not good for you. 5 seconds goes quite quickly…

I’ve also been organizing the outbuilding with many hooks and things to get various tools off the floor and workbench, and onto the walls where they can be easily found and used. It is looking much better. Even used a shopvac in there to get the cobwebs and spiders out. Plenty of room now.

Added a few hooks in the garage too. Still need a lot of tool rearranging to make it more convenient when I need the right tool at the right time.

Oh, and my brother brought back the screen he took to the local hardware shop for repair. This second floor screen was cut in half by the prior owner of the house — likely to put in a fan or room A/C. The inspector missed it or it would have been replaced prior to me buying. Anyway, my brother did the install too. Still not quite sure how he got it in the track that is on the outside of the house, without anything on the inside of the screen to grip while reaching out the window. But thank you Bro…

Other than that, as I said, not much happening. == Well, I did have a couple of “late” notices on bills. Shoot, I always go for auto-pay online. Not quite sure how the gas company screwed up after the first month, but I was “behind’ on payments and had to redo the setup. And, when I switched from Florida Medigap and Drug plans, to the Ohio versions, the company said my auto-pay through the Social Security check would continue. It didn’t.. I was “behind” on those too. Ugh. Changed to credit card auto-pay so I am not dependent upon the government to do something correctly.

Many other minor things keep popping up needing home handyman type fixes. Tomorrow I will be replacing part of the inners of a toilet tank that won’t flush. The other day I had to reattach the front screen door handle that fell off in my hand. But that is just day-to-day inconveniences of living in a house.

I hope everyone is well, as the virus starts another strong wave, and that you are in the position to

Enjoy Life